My Blog List

Friday, 24 May 2013

Socrates was ‘inadequate’, research reveals.

Educationalists at the
University of Carterton’s Centre for Learning claim to have found shocking new
evidence regarding the well-known classical sage, Socrates.

‘We have been studying the
Socratic Dialogues for months now,’ said Jenny Marwick, Professor of Progress
Studies. ‘We expected to find regular, in-built progress checks. But they were
just not there. No traffic lights, no thumbs-up or thumbs-down, nothing. Put
simply, Socrates did not check progress.”

As educational
archaeologists at dig-sites in Athens search frantically for fragments of card
sorts, lollypop sticks or other evidence that Socrates did in fact promote
rapid progress through active and independent learning, hope is fading fast.
‘The new ONSTED observation schedule is categorical on the importance of
progress checks,’ says Jenny Marwick. ‘We
may therefore have to accept the simple fact that Socrates was inadequate.’

The implications of the findings
are potentially huge. The fear is that Plato, who was famously line-managed by
Socrates and who recorded the dialogues, may have been influenced by his
mentor’s disregard for progress. ‘If this is the case,’ says Marwick, ‘then
Plato was probably inadequate too. Given that Plato is usually regarded as the
father of Western philosophy, this would throw into doubt everything we think
we know about life and the universe.’

Marwick’s team recommend
the immediate removal from schools of all works associated with Socrates and
Plato. ‘In fact, it’s probably safest to remove any material that predates the
publication of the new ONSTED schedule.’

Some academics, however, have come to Socrates’s defence. ‘His
targeted questioning is really very good,’ said Andrew Cummings, Professor of
Learning Sciences at the University of Bridlington’s Department of Innovation
and Skills.